Tuesday 11th November 2003

Cameras Cost Lives

Autocar increases pressure on the Government for a credible road safety policy

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Autocar is making the bold claim that Speed Cameras cost lives rather than save them.

In an article published in today's magazine they claim that their research shows that the lack of police on our roads has created more problems than cameras have solved.

Steve Sutcliffe, editor of Autocar magazine chirped: "Speed cameras are a £150 million failure. They do not deter drivers from speeding, are remarkably unsuccessful at saving lives and may well cause accidents of their own. Their presence has meant the removal of police from our roads, so thousands of serious driving offences now go undetected ."

As an alternative Autocar believes speed cameras could even be putting lives at risk because:

• there are no longer as many police cars on our roads because the police now rely too much on cameras to catch speeders, which means there are also…

• more drunk drivers going undetected

• more drugged drivers going undetected

• more insurance fraudsters going undetected

• more defective vehicles on our roads than ever before

Autocar has discovered that while the number of speeding drivers caught by cameras has risen four-fold to more than 1million since 1996, there has been a less than five per cent reduction in the number of road deaths.

Highlighting the inconsistency of the anti-speed argument, they found that the ten most lethal roads in the country are covered by just four speed cameras.

Autocar have forwarded its findings to the government and has suggested that the manifesto it has put together is taken on board as a starting point of a major serious campaign to cut road deaths. The 10 major points of the Autocar manifesto are:

1. Improve driver education and training

2. Position speed cameras in genuine black-spot areas

3. Get traffic police back on the road

4. Establish an expert body to set all speed limits

5. Improve the driving test

6. Give the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency more teeth

7. Implement a graded licence for new drivers

8. Revamp the licence penalty points system

9. Engineer existing roads for greater safety

10. Begin a major, sustained roads-building programme

Despite the huge number of drivers who are also voters, it remains to be seen if any political party has the courage to make such a marked change in roads policy. Is Michael Howard brave enough...?

[dontlift]

Here is a link to another autocar article:

www.autocarmagazine.co.uk/News_Article.asp?NA_ID=204354&EL_ID=3030687&ST=fromcurrentresults

>>> Edited by dontlift on Tuesday 11th November 08:45

[puggit]

Has been on local radio (2-ten FM) and Sky news too - lots of coverage today.

2-ten have a survey and comment box at www.koko.com/sRC.cfm?nodeId=32&full_path=$/berkshire&clicksource=map

Little article in the Sun: www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003520392,00.html

Great timing for the petition

[deltaf]

Well it seems that sense is finally starting to do the rounds.
Its what we've all been saying for ages.
Now that the ball is rolling, lets get this petition to give it a real kick!

[james]

They were talking about the introduction of cameras in France this morning. Apparently they've installed the first 30, and they've been attacked with paint, sledge hammers and bullets. They're now having to rig up CCTV cameras to keep an eye on the speed cameras

I really do like the French more and more with every passing day

[RichardD]

james said:

I really do like the French more and more with every passing day

Yes, the French don't like taking cr*p from anyone.

A friend at work has recently been caught in the outskirts of a village, not far from where the 30mph turned into a 60mph. They were hiding round a corner to catch as many people as possible.

I don't know if this exists, but as fuel for the argument against use of cameras as revenue generators - is there anywhere where dubious use of cameras gets listed on the www ?

Such a list could be useful in the battle...

[Marshy]

The siting of mobile units could go a long way to defusing some of the public's cynicism towards speed enforcement. This very point, in the last post, about siting traps ont he way OUT of villages makes my blood boil.

Get 'em ON THE WAY in. Slow them down BEFORE they speed all the way through the village. Would be safer all round, no?

The only time I've been stopped for speeding? Yep, on the way out of my village. Saw the NSL sign: wasn't very far ahead, speed crept up to 46 in a 40, got zapped and sternly talked to.

[DustyC]

A very good article. Hope it promotes our cause enough for something to be done.

One thing I would like to see added to the manifesto is motorway driving tutition to be included in the driving test and motorway driving rules advertisements to get to the current drivers.

[streaky]

Marshy said:

... The only time I've been stopped for speeding? Yep, on the way out of my village. Saw the NSL sign: wasn't very far ahead, speed crept up to 46 in a 40, got zapped and sternly talked to.

Well, "sternly talked to" is much better than three points and sixty quid.

BTW - when you say, "sternly talked to", I assume you don't mean he was talking out of his 4r5e?

Streaky

[Apache]

Utter nonsense, speed kills, everyone knows that and if you get caught you only have yourself to blame...........sounds a bit lame now doesn't it?

[v8thunder]

It is a good argument but wouldn't this just mean that the government would introduce all this legislation at massive public cost ON TOP of the existing scamera regime, making driving utter hell and not really making any difference.

[stackmonkey]

There isn't that much legislation in the 'top 10' list. The other provisos wouldn't be any more expensive than the cameras already have been, road building aside, but then successive gov'ts have all promised big road building schemes only to scale back when it's quieter politically....

All good stuff as far as i can see.

[Black S2K]

I can only recommend visiting the Association of British Drivers (ABD) website, where they try to present a reasoned analysis if some of the "facts" about road safety.

[simonrockman]

I don't understand why the increase in cameras means fewer policemen on the roads. Surely the cameras can pay for themselves and more.

I don't think that cameras do a good job of improving road safety, but it's not automatically one or the other.

Simon